She

Username: She

Political Beliefs: I call myself an independent because I am at the moment unsatisfied with all the politicians. It's become too much of an industry and not enough of a representative service for Americans. II should probably be a dem... In any case, I am what I call an 'extreme moderate.' I have VERY polarized views on both sides of the aisle, with some rather apathetic view right in the middle. I like to say I'm both left and right: more left than right, and more right than wrong! ^_^

Religious Beliefs: Brought up Episcopalian, and I still affiliate with the Church. If you get down to the nitty gritty of it, I am mainly Deist, and I STRONGLY believe that modern science is VERY reconcilable with God

Other Hobbies/Interests/Etc.: Music, for one. I know everyone says it in their interests, but I mean it. I'm a music major, I sing and play the organ, and I compose and arrange music. My taste in music is incredibly eclectic; I have a bit of almost everything, minus rap/hiphop/bad music. I like to make things: I write, I compose, I do pottery, I draw, I knit constantly, and I'm always thinking of new ideas, situations, stories, and concepts. I do kung-fu. I like cats. I LOVE reading. That's how I spent most of the years when I was supposed to learn to be social. Among my favorite authors are Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Douglas Adams, JRR Tolkein, and Isaac Asimov. I love video games, mostly nintendo.

Why did you come here?: i was invited by a close friend, and it reminds me of my first real experience with the internet.

What do you hope to gain?: Do I have to hope to gain anything? That's a very capitalist question. I only hope to offer the fair and equal trade of my thoughts for yours. I don't want to gain anything, for for me to gain something, someone else would have to loose something.

What do you hope to give?: All that I can

Anything else?: I love to sleep, because when I dream, my imagination takes over, and I am the main character in a wild adventure story, with characters, plot development, twists, and incredible feats. It makes sleep worth it.

it is a damn shame that I know exactly who you are from your intro.... you kill me gabble lol

also when you say a deist it just means that you believe in god but what else does that entail? For you and in general when do you stop being episcopal/catholic/insert religion here and start being a deist? What does religion mean to you?

You, like Avalon, are also a breath of fresh air. I grew up going to a pretty conservative non-denominational christian church with a VERY conservative christian family (actually, only the mom was super conservative, the dad not so much). And, at my young age, I accepted everything they told me as true. When I got older and started learning about dinosaurs and other science things, I started getting terribly confused (especially with the dinosaurs). In 9th grade it clicked and I realized similarities to both science and western belief systems. Generally, when I talk to people about them, though, they think I'm totally bonkers and that it doesn't make any sense. They are also usually very religious, or very not. :/

dinosaurs don't make sense...? always seemed pretty clear to me. Lewis Black has a really funny skit about super christians and dinosaurs so funny! But that must have been tough hippiefly being around so many strict beliefs. Its a shame but such uncompromising views of religion can be suffocating and many times lead to distance between people and the church. weather that is good or bad well that is a story for another day.

Well, with the dinosaurs thing, I was confused because I had been taught that Adam and Eve came first, but then science said that dinosaurs were around before people...

Causes a lot of confusion for a 7 y.o.

Oh see they never taught theology in my school. I guess I would be confused too Did people try to tell you that fossils were tools of the devil? Apparently some people believe that...which is concerning

I was never taught theology either, just science. But things I learned in science (which always had hard evidence) contradicted things I learned at church (which simply had a book that had been written by men who are fallible). And my old neighbor, who I had gone to church with, told me straight up that dinosaurs weren't real, which is obviously not true.

Well, I would first like to say to hippiefly (and I in NO WAY think this way, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate) you say men are fallible, yes? Well, men are he ones gathering this 'hard evidence.' Who is to say that the evidence is not wrong as well? (psst... the answer is that the book way back when was written by men who were desperately trying to make sense of a world they knew very little about, and had a very small view of. The storieswere what made sense to them, extrapolating from things that really did happen. Even if the bible WAS divinely inspired, do you think God would explain things like cellular mitosis, evolution, and nuclear physics to a bunch of desert dwelling nomads? No, that would blow their minds. So instead the stories are rooted in fact but at this point should really only be used as moral guide).

And to Avalon: ARG WHO ARE YOOOOUUUUUUU!?
And Deism isn't just a belief in God. It has been called the 'Clockmaker' view of God: HE created the universe (Big Bang), put in the laws of math and physics, set up processes like evolution, and let it all cog before him. Basically, I was sitting on my own thinking about God and deermined that this made the most sense. Then, when I explained it to my uncle (who is a baptist preist) said "Oh! So you're a Deist!"

My Episcopalianness (I am in NO WAY a catholic) doesn't just 'end' and then deism begins. One of the great things about the Episcopalian church is that you can form your beliefs is any way, and you can pretty much still be called an Epis. In fact, one of the jokes of the church is "No matter what you believe, there is probably at least one person who agrees with you." It's a very accepting denomination, and coming from it, I feel fine in logicing (yes, i just verbed that noun) God and science together.

just saying but who has so much free time that they would forge dinosaur bones all across the world. after a while a people just have to accept to dinosaurs were real. So what happens when a deist dies? What do they return to the planet (lol) or is that up for grabs? If I have a choice can I become a bird...or a star...yeah a star is ok by me!

God torture the sinners of yore and put their twisted bones in the ground to test the faith of the righteous. GOD AVALON HOW CAN YOU BEE SO BLIND? lol

And Deism (for me, anyway) is just a way of seeing christianity. And why focus on what will happen when I'm dead? I'd rather focus on life.

then the sinners of yore were freakin huge...

Now, I believe that the Bible is an accurate historical text and we can learn a lot about the history of people through the studying of it. But when you're 7, you don't really think that far into things.

Also, as I got older, I realized more and more similarities between science and the ideas of Christians. For example, creationism vs. evolution/big bang? They are the same to me, one simply has a higher power that man put in to help explain the unexplainable, like folklore. (Not that I'm saying Christianity is folklore.) I believe that the "days" spoken of in Genesis are not in fact days, but millions of years at a time.

Most people think I'm totally bonkers when I say things like that. If you need more clarity, let me know.
I also watch those shows on the History channel alllll the time about like, the parting of the Red Sea and the flood of Noah, etc.

Deism is essentially a form of Christianity derived from the ideas of the Enlightenment period. Deists tend to view humanity as more important in the workings of the world than, for instance, Calvinists would. Basically, there's a god, but he lets people do their own thing.
In case you wanted some clarification. :]

The clarification was needed, fairytale, thanks. And I'll touch on some other questions I have religious wise later.

Right now I'd like to focus politically on something that has me a bit confused: you call yourself an independant, but from the things I've seen you post and the conversations you had, your political beliefs more center around the more conservative. I get not wanting to affiliate with parties (says the radical anarchist) but why call your beliefs something they are clearly not? Why not just be proud of your conservatism?

Not meaning to imply anything except that calling your beliefs something they aren't really can get confusing. Nothing else.

Now, see, here's the funny thing: by what I've posted so far, I WOULD seem conservative, but if you ask me anything about a social issue, you better WATCH OUT because the bleeding heart liberal will come out riproaring ready to go.

Honestly, I call my self an independant because 1) I don't want to associate with eiher major party, 2) the core beleifs of political parties do change, and 3) I don't truely fit perfectly with any party. When asked about my place liberal/conservative spectrum, I like to say that I am an "extreme moderate:" I have in the middle views, and them i have extreme view on botht the left and right side of the aisle. I am, however, more liberal than conserrvative. We just haven't gotten to those parts yet.



And thank you fairytale. That makes perfect sense to me.

she wrote:Now, see, here's the funny thing: by what I've posted so far, I WOULD seem conservative, but if you ask me anything about a social issue, you better WATCH OUT because the bleeding heart liberal will come out riproaring ready to go.

Okay then. Immigration's a pretty hot topic social issue right now. What're your thoughts, if you don't mind my asking?

ha, well, I already posted my thoughts on the appropriate thread, but I guess i'll repost them here:

I am a stickler for rules. If you are here illegally, you are here illegally. You are breaking the law, and appropriate action needs to be taken. Part of it, too, is that these people are becoming citizens (or close enough) before people who are trying to gain citizenship legally. That is not fair, to say that if you break the law you are rewarded, and if you try to follow he rules, you are stuck waiting for possibly years.

Then there is also the matter of taxation. The way I see it, taxes are like paying rent to live in America (it makes sense), and if you are living here and not paying taxes, there is an issue. But this is a secondary issue to me, because there are also people who are not paying taxes for legit reasons (visitor's visa, childhood, below the minimum income line).

That's a pretty conservative standpoint in my book. Could just be me though. And I'm not trying to accuse, just help you see it yourself.

For instance, let's jump off a point about taxes. Do you believe in a centralization of government that is strong in all matters with states taking precedence over things not federally defined, or are you of the opinion that states get an equal say and that the regionalizing of government is better than central?

Ergo, are you a statist or a centralist?

Hoo boy..... first of all, I would like to say that immigration is like my only conservative stance. It just happens to be REALLY conservative.

Second, it's been a while since I took government, so my head is still reeling from what you just asked. Just lemme take a second look at that......

Ok! I understand now: Well, as the civil war established, the federal gov't reigns supreme. This probably isn't quite what the founding fathers wanted, but we aren't in the 1700's anymore, are we? No, as you'll recall, the civil war was about whether states had the power to do most of their own governing (south) or if the federal government had the power to make extra laws on various things not covered by the constitution already-like slavery (north). Well, as we all (should) know, the north won, so the fed government can make extra laws and then enforce them. Essentially, the states got warred out of their rights. ^_^
(Now, I suspect that you'll turn my answer to your question around and upset my argument (but that's only because that is what socrates would do), saying that in fact Obama has every right to go after Arizona. So please allow my to stress this point: I don't have any problem with obama going to court, I just don't understand what the big deal is.)
^So as far as america is concerned, it's all up to Washington D.C. In that way, I guess you could call me a centralist.

My views on political philosophy are a little different, however. It seems to me that government works best in small communities. The smaller the community, the more likely you are to have people with the same views, needs, and interests, and you can govern them all the same (ex. Oligarchical dictatorships (if you want to get technical with these terms) work great in tiny familial units). The larger your country gets, the more diverse becomes your constituency, and therefore the harder it becomes to govern everybody equally. Now, it could be that that is just because it was easier and quicker to communicate back then. Now, as communications technology become faster and better, it could end up that a larger-spanning government could work. (Orson Scott Card, the brilliant fiction writer, asserted in his Ender's Game series that the creation of instantaneous communication is what made it finally possible to unite not the world but the galaxy under one government).
^In this way, I suppose you could call me a statist.


I don't really understand where taxes came in with your question.

Tax support is a hallmark of liberal economics, as well as centralized government in most cases.

Did you know that instantaneous communication is impossible, at least by Einsteinian physics (I'll have to read up on string theory a little more, but I think this holds true). The issue was actually a big deal in solving the problems that Newtonian physics posed for Einstein's new special relativity. If you the full story, I'll tell it because it's fascinating, but I'll be short otherwise.

The reason instantaneous is this: because light always travels at a constant speed, not everyone will experience time in the same way as others do, due to the simple fact that everything in the universe is moving at different speeds. Light always travels at 670 million miles per hour, thus meaning that such things as instantaneous communication are impossible.

Again, if you want an explanation further than that, ask. I'm not gonna bore people with some physics explanation they don't care to hear. That's bordering on self-righteousness, something I really need to cut down on.

I know instant anything is impossible. I did pay SOME attention in physics. No, I'm pretty sure I said he was a fiction writer....

I do find all that stuff fascinating. But I also already know most of it. If you want to explain further, you may, but I would just be refreshing my knowledge, not adding to it.

Oh, well if you already know the stuff and implications about string theory and dark matter and superstrings and the like I won't bother too much. I guess I just thought more people didn't know. My apologies for merely providing a refresher. Haha.

Refreshers are fun! Please, explain it, because I likely won't take quantum physics in my life, but I love hearing about it!